My Driver's License is from the Cayman Islands!

As of me writing this, we’ve had three clients with driver’s licenses issued by the Cayman Islands. The Cayman Islands is a British Overseas Territory and Caymanians are British Overseas Territory Citizens. It is, technically, the job of the British embassy and consulate to represent Caymanians outside of their islands. It should be pretty straightforward for them to get Panamanian driver’s licenses then, right?

No. Not at all.

If you come from a place without an embassy or consulate in Panama then things can get tricky. And while, yes, this applies to little places like the Cayman Islands and the Bailiwick of Jersey, it also surprisingly applies to larger countries like New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland.

The British Embassy and Consulate couldn’t help the Caymanians because their system for validating driver’s licenses only works for drivers from England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. No one, of course, knew what to do. I had to contact the Office of the Premier of the Cayman Islands, essentially their prime minister, to get help. At the end of the day, I had to contact an office within the Caymanian government which issued a Letter of Entitlement for my clients that was sent to the British Consulate in Panama who then certified that document. Yeesh.

The process for New Zealanders is more straightforward and involves contacting the Honorary Consul, which is, strangely, a Panamanian law firm, who will have the requisite paperwork prepared by the consulate in Mexico City.

To sum things up, when you’re from a country without an embassy or consulate in Panama, getting a license can be more difficult, but not impossible. The best thing to do is to ask someone who has already gone through the process. If that’s not possible, send me an email and I’ll let you know what to do. I recommend this instead of contacting the consulates directly because some of them, such as the British consulate, don’t answer their emails and their receptionist likes to leave the phone off the hook and hang up on you if he doesn’t know the answer. As a longtime British expat once told me, the best way to get the British government to help you with your Panamanian license is to get arrested for driving without one and have them visit you in jail.